


Wake

by Mithen



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Grief, M/M, Star Trek: Generations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-03
Updated: 2010-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock hears of Kirk's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Amanda Palmer's ["The Astronaut."](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O6GqCwjh-k)

_ Is it getting harder to pretend  
that life goes on without you in the wake  
and can you see the means without the end  
in the random frantic action that we take... _

Spock is watching the news when they mention it: James T. Kirk has died. He prepares to struggle with strong emotion, and to his surprise there is none. None at all. He merely keeps watching the news. James Kirk is dead. His captain is dead. He feels nothing. James T. Kirk died saving the Enterprise, and Spock wasn't there. A brief calculation reveals that at the moment James T. Kirk was most likely exposed to the vacuum of space, Spock had been analyzing some rock samples. He had felt nothing. He did not feel anything at the moment his captain died. He feels nothing.

He feels nothing.

At some point he stands up and goes back to work, because there is no reason not to.

Many years later, he is working on Romulus, in the middle of an important negotiation, when out of nowhere a wave of grief crashes into him, bleak and agonizing and unbearable. He feels his mind will tear in two under the assault. He excuses himself and barely escapes to his quarters before falling to the ground, weeping uncontrollably, pain in his heart and his mind. He doesn't struggle against it, he doesn't banish it from his mind; instead he seizes it as one would a long-lost lover, embracing the emotion wracking him, welcoming it. _Jim,_ he thinks. _My captain. T'hy'la_. For a moment there is an answering surge, golden light in his mind, reaching (_T'hy'la_)... and it is gone.

When Jean-Luc Picard comes to him, to tell him what happened, he is ready for it. He is even able to smile slightly for the first time since the world ended so many years ago. Grief is a small weight below his heart, a welcome friend, connecting him to the world and giving it meaning once more.


End file.
